Despite the fact that comic book superheroes are some of the the biggest moneyproducers on the big and small screens lately, the creators who brought them to life rarely receive more than a fraction of the financial success that comes their way. But like Marvel The hawk and the winter soldier cook a storm on Disney +, comic book writer Ed Brubaker opened up about how big this difference is.
Brubaker, along with artist Steve Epting, colorist Frank D’Armata and writer Randy Gentile, formed the team behind Captain America comics run who saw Bucky Barnes seemingly return beyond the grave as the former Red Chamber assassin Winter Soldier in 2005, half a century since Barnes had been an active character in Marvel comics. But since Sebastian Stan Barnes’ iteration was turned into the winter soldier for the second Captain America movie in Marvel Cinematic Universe – and it is now plays in his own self-titled show with Anthony Mackie’s Falcon on Disney + —Brubaker and his creative colleagues were treated … Well, less than ideally, as has their character shot at the cultural cultural star.
“I remember sitting there in the third movie … and I just remembered this Jack Kirby ulcer growing in my stomach, saying, ‘That’s how I felt, baby, except a hundred times. Worse, so fuck, ”Brubaker remembered seeing Captain America civil war during a long and sincere appearance on the podcast of Kevin Smith and Marc Bernardin Fatman Beyond (his appearance starts around 56:45 in the video below) earlier this week.
Brubaker opened up about his strange relationship with the winter soldier’s rise to the MCU, from how it would last a few weeks after Captain America: The Winter SoldierS Comic-Con announcement before Marvel Studios addresses him about the news, refuses a check for a thank-you credit Civil war that he described it as “an insult” and how the writer earns more money from his short cameo Winter soldierflashback sequences than he does in the residue, after they brought the winter soldier to life. “As the years went by, I just started thinking, ‘Why don’t we get anything for this?’ Brubaker wondered. “We can get a ‘Thank You’ or a credit, but these movies make billions of dollars and it feels like we’ve got a bad deal.”
He created an animus for the writer that he now feels as he sees Bucky grow to an even greater prominence right now, co-playing in The hawk and the winter soldier on Disney +. “I think I could be the only person in America who is not excited about this show,” said Brubaker, who hasn’t watched any of the series so far. “It simply came to our notice then [The Falcon and the Winter Soldier], it kind of makes me sick to my stomach. ”
He added: “As a company, why [Marvel] do you want it to be the way creators feel? When I work with people, I try to give them the best deal possible, and if something gets bigger, I’ll try to adjust their business … I want everyone I work with to feel like they have a good deal and they were treated well ”.
G / O Media may receive a commission
Aside from his recent, brief remarks about The hawk and the winter soldier in his newsletter, Brubaker stayed relatively far from commenting on his feelings about the success of Marvel movies and his relationship with them. But he went on to explain that after a near-death drowning experience led him to contemplate what would be left behind for his wife, he began to realize the great disparity between what he saw for his Marvel work – beyond his iconic run on Captain America comics, still printed today as a definitive run of the modern character – and the worldwide success of the films that were inspired by his work.
“It’s ridiculous. That, being a co-creator of the Winter Soldier … I shouldn’t be worried about my wife’s care if I die right now,” the writer added. to be overlooked in this way. “
It should be noted that Brubaker and Epting did not create Bucky Barnes, the character – Bucky is much older than the Winter Soldier, as old as Captain America himself, appearing with Steve in the pages of Jack Kirby and Joe Simon. Comics Captain America # 1. But it’s hard to deny that Bucky’s transformation of Brubaker and Epting isn’t fundamental to the version of the character we see played by Sebastian Stan in the Marvel movies and now The hawk and the winter soldier– and that, even if they are not direct creators, their vision of the character is probably the one that is based on much more than the previous iteration of Kirby and Simon.
“I’m not happy with my life or that I wrote this,” Brubaker said. “I am just proud of all the work I have done Daredevil, on Cap, I don’t love X-Men run away but there are people who liked it. I enjoyed working at Marvel, I felt really good there. But at the same time, I feel that, you know … to be a little more generous? ”
It already makes messy comic book rights – combined with the way big publishers like Marvel and DC they took care of the commercials for decades, even before the superhero movie boomed – and more messy when you start thinking no just who created these successful heroes, but who version one of them is the one that makes it go off the page and become multimedia empires. But no matter how messy it is, with superheroes written extended into the landscape of our pop culture the way they are, it is a conversation that needs to be carried more publicly and sincere remarks like Brubaker are just the beginning.
For more, be sure to follow us on Instagram @io9dotcom.